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Overview

Do You Want to Play?: A Book about Being Friends by Bob Kolar

Learn the ins and outs of being a friend in this zany, art-packed book brimming with funny details and quirky characters. Working together and taking turns, fighting and apologizing, making new friends and keeping old friends-all of these topics and more are explored as two pals spend the day in Friendship Park. Sprinkled throughout with tidbits of advice, playtime ideas, and a board game, this book is perfect for sharing with a friend.

"The book is so bright and full of drolleries that children may pore over it for hours, and will return to these pages often."-Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

Read an Excerpt

Learn the ins and outs of being a friend in this zany, art-packed book brimming with funny details and quirky characters. Working together and taking turns, fighting and apologizing, making new friends and keeping old friends-all of these topics and more are explored as two pals spend the day in Friendship Park. Sprinkled throughout with tidbits of advice, playtime ideas, and a board game, this book is perfect for sharing with a friend.

"The book is so bright and full of drolleries that children may pore over it for hours, and will return to these pages often."-Kirkus Reviews

First Chapter

Learn the ins and outs of being a friend in this zany, art-packed book brimming with funny details and quirky characters. Working together and taking turns, fighting and apologizing, making new friends and keeping old friends-all of these topics and more are explored as two pals spend the day in Friendship Park. Sprinkled throughout with tidbits of advice, playtime ideas, and a board game, this book is perfect for sharing with a friend.

"The book is so bright and full of drolleries that children may pore over it for hours, and will return to these pages often."-Kirkus Reviews

Table of Contents

Learn the ins and outs of being a friend in this zany, art-packed book brimming with funny details and quirky characters. Working together and taking turns, fighting and apologizing, making new friends and keeping old friends-all of these topics and more are explored as two pals spend the day in Friendship Park. Sprinkled throughout with tidbits of advice, playtime ideas, and a board game, this book is perfect for sharing with a friend.

"The book is so bright and full of drolleries that children may pore over it for hours, and will return to these pages often."-Kirkus Reviews

Reading Group Guide

Learn the ins and outs of being a friend in this zany, art-packed book brimming with funny details and quirky characters. Working together and taking turns, fighting and apologizing, making new friends and keeping old friends-all of these topics and more are explored as two pals spend the day in Friendship Park. Sprinkled throughout with tidbits of advice, playtime ideas, and a board game, this book is perfect for sharing with a friend.

"The book is so bright and full of drolleries that children may pore over it for hours, and will return to these pages often."-Kirkus Reviews

Interviews

Learn the ins and outs of being a friend in this zany, art-packed book brimming with funny details and quirky characters. Working together and taking turns, fighting and apologizing, making new friends and keeping old friends-all of these topics and more are explored as two pals spend the day in Friendship Park. Sprinkled throughout with tidbits of advice, playtime ideas, and a board game, this book is perfect for sharing with a friend.

"The book is so bright and full of drolleries that children may pore over it for hours, and will return to these pages often."-Kirkus Reviews

Recipe

Learn the ins and outs of being a friend in this zany, art-packed book brimming with funny details and quirky characters. Working together and taking turns, fighting and apologizing, making new friends and keeping old friends-all of these topics and more are explored as two pals spend the day in Friendship Park. Sprinkled throughout with tidbits of advice, playtime ideas, and a board game, this book is perfect for sharing with a friend.

"The book is so bright and full of drolleries that children may pore over it for hours, and will return to these pages often."-Kirkus Reviews

Editorial Reviews

Kolar's (Stomp! Stomp!) pleasantly dizzying volume is a variety show of common-sense advice on friendship. In spreads crowded with collage details and sprinkled with words and phrases, he touts fun ways to meet new people at a party or on a playground; the pictures favor theme over plot and brim with activity. Every spread centers on an Ernie-and-Bert-style duo who wander together through the boisterous "Friendship Park." All around them, kindly greetings and corny jokes help strangers break the ice. In one dynamic scene, the central characters attend a potluck concert that includes a sax-playing flower, a horn-blowing potato and a cymbal-clashing cat, among a multitude of others. This composition--constructed of gouache, tissue, cutout map-scraps and printed paper--also features multiple typefaces that spell out the bangs, honks and ratta-tats of numerous instruments. "Sometimes we disagree, and then things really get out of tune," observes a bystander, providing transition to a section on fights and name-calling, apologies and forgiveness. (Sample exchange: "Still pals?" "I guess so.") The volume's center spread is a board game that rewards considerate acts and criticizes unfriendliness ("Make fun of someone: Move back 3"). This optimistic, lively book is too big and too busy for just one sitting and, in keeping with its theme, is ideal when shared among two or more readers at a time. Ages 5-8. (May) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This could be a good resource for children beginning to read. However, it is somewhat confusing, as there is no clear-cut story to read. The book consists of paper cut outs pasted onto backgrounds. Some of the pages contain a semblance of a story idea, but most of them are a confusing mishmash of cut outs pasted to look like buildings, or people with words placed here or there to illustrate relationships between pictures. If you need a book that can hold a child's interest and stimulate reading comprehension, look somewhere else. 1999, Puffin Books, $6.99. Ages 4 to 6. Reviewer: Danielle Williams

Children's Literature

This is one of the most unusual book about friendships that I have seen. The characters are cartoons made of geometrical shapes, and the page design is "busy" with lots of action, color, and information. There is even a friendship board game in the middle of the book. The advice for making and keeping friends is humorously presented. On every page there is also a "friendly tip" which offers advice such as "If you like someone, tell him or her. If you don't, keep it to yourself," and "Quiet friends have a lot to say if you give them a chance." I liked the information in the book and think kids will enjoy the style. A great book for young elementary school children. 2001, Dutton Children's Books, $6.99. Ages 3 to 10. Reviewer: S. Latson SOURCE: Parent Council, September 2001 (Vol. 9, No. 1)

K-Gr 4-In this unusual picture book, two pals enter "Friendship Park" and discover the complexities-good and bad-of interacting together. Readers then follow along on a visual and narrative hodgepodge. Double-page collage spreads are filled with zany geometric characters, accompanying captions, and numerous activities. One spread features "Good Friend Instructions" with a diagram. Another offers a board game. Scattered throughout the pages are jokes, stories, and boxed "Friendly Tips" that range from helpful ("Quiet friends can have a lot to say if you give them a chance") to bland ("Don't you love getting a turn?") to silly and sophomoric ("Pick your friends, not your nose, and never pick your friend's nose"). Overall, the effect is very uneven. Parts of the book are clever and unique; others are confusing and cluttered. The "Where's Waldo" generation may enjoy the game elements, exploring the pictures, and discovering the jokes. However, for most readers, the theme will probably be overwhelmed by the layout unless introduced by an adult.-Heide Piehler, Shorewood Public Library, WI Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Where Dave Ross's and Laura Rader's A Book of Friends (p.Ê537) faltered, Kolar's big, gregarious book succeeds; it's the ideal size for covering the giant topic of friendship. The pages are rife with drawings, while the text is a collage of tips, captions, and declarations. The spreads show a pageant of the things friends do: bike-riding, dancing, sending messages, and playing musical instruments. The downside of friendship shows up, too, for fights break out and sometimes people just need to be alone. Such general concepts are the playground for Kolar's parade of silly pictures. "Check me out!" says a checker board, doffing his hat, while on another page a flower explains, "My friends picked me." The endpapers are alive with stick people, juggling, sweeping, and eating gigantic ice cream cones. A board game breaks up the text by contributing concepts about friendship, e.g., "Stick out your tongue at someone/Lose a turn," while a separate tale within the pages offers children a mini-storytime. The book is so bright and full of drolleries that children may pore over it for hours, and will return to these pages often. (Picture book. 5-8)